She presided over the kitchen – the house – the whole farm. The wheat farm – acres and acres of rolling fields in Saskatchewan – where you can see forever.

It seemed to me that Auntie Sylvia spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Cooking for the cousins, uncles, aunts, everyone. The coffee pot was kept full. The aroma of fresh, homemade buns filled the air. And laughter filled the air.

We always gathered on the farm – the one my grandparents settled when they immigrated to Canada. It was my second home – and the home of all my best childhood memories:

• Biking – on those endless, flat, gravel roads.
• Games in the basement with my sister and cousins.
• Snowmobiling in winter. One year there so much snow we could walk up the drift and onto the roof of the house.
• The Playhouse. It had electricity. We spent hours there – baking small cakes in the Easy-Bake Oven.
• Collecting eggs. Farm stuff that a town girl liked because it was always a bit of a novelty.

We always returned to the kitchen, where good stuff was waiting for us.

And we played the piano. My aunt was a piano teacher. Now her daughter – my cousin Darlene – is a piano teacher. Like I am – carrying on what our mothers did.

She blessed many. You will be missed,  Auntie Sylvia.

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Photo: from the early 70s. My aunt is standing.